Tokujin Yoshioka is a Japanese designer who was born in Saga in 1967 and who earned his degree from the Kuwasawa Design School in Tokyo.
Afterwards, he launched significant partnerships with Shiro Kuramata and Issey Miyake, and in 2000, he established his own studio in Tokyo called Tokujin Yoshioka Inc.
Tokujin Yoshioka is an architect, installation artist, and visual designer whose work is characterized by a poetic and experimental style that draws influence from Japanese culture and natural-theme motifs.
Transparent and reflecting materials, along with light and spatial interaction, characterize many of his works, elevating them above the realm of form and the product of extensive aesthetic and technological investigation.
Based on this idea, architects designed structures like the Transparent Japanese House (2002) and the Kou-an Glass teahouse, a little glass pavilion dedicated to the tea ceremonial and put at Kyoto's Shogunzuka shrine in 2015.
He also created the multi-sensory piece Rainbow Church in 2013 for Tokyo's Museum of Contemporary Art.
Water Block benches from 2002, as well as pieces from the Glas Italia collection such as the Prism Glass Chair with armrests, the Prism Glass wardrobe, the Prism Partition screen, the Prism Mirror Table, the Luminous coffee table, and the Fountain coffee table all feature glass as a primary or secondary material.
Tokujin Yoshioka's work can be found in the permanent collections of museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Vitra Design Museum, and the Montreal Museum of Modern Art.
Desalto (the Hexagon coffee tables in marble and steel versions with crystal and the Element range of tables) and Moroso are only two of his many partners (including Moon, a polyethene armchair with metallic lacquer finish and Panna Chair armchair with removable fabric cover).
In 2010, he became a member of Mutina's team, and together they created Phenomenon, a diverse line of porcelain stoneware wall tiles in unconventional shapes and sizes that are inspired by the textures of natural materials.
Tokujin Yoshioka has been honored with numerous prestigious accolades over the course of his career, including Designer of the Year at Design Miami in 2007, Best Furniture Designer at the Wallpaper Design Awards in 2008, Designer of the Year at the Elle Deco International Design Award in 2009 and 2016 and Creator of the Year at Maison & Objet in 2012.
The torch for the 2022 Summer Olympics in Tokyo was designed by him in 2019. Tokujin Yoshioka has been the subject of extensive writing, most notably in Phaidon (2006) and Rizzoli (2008) monographs (2010).
According to Newsweek, he is one of the top 100 most admired Japanese people in the world.
